How satisfying is it creating those places where you find the perfect challenge that gets you excited, motivated and fully focused? Your unique challenge destination. The fitness world is one of the best arenas in which to find that destination. It’s a world of endless possibilities to match your challenge appetite to a fitness activity and create that motivational magic.
In this article, we’ll explore the different ways you might experience your challenge in the fitness world. Think of these as destinations you might take yourself to during your fitness journey. The exciting part? There is no forever destination. You can move between them all according to what is going on in your life right now. Sometimes you might be working solo, powered by your inner determination, or you might flourish in the energy of a group. Gaining new skills might be your priority, or maybe taking your fitness to unknown environments. Your fitness challenge could even totally rewrite your way of life.
What is your next challenge destination on your fitness journey? Read on to find out the type of challenge that is right for you now.
You Provide Your Spotlight
That fist pump you make when you nail that extra rep? That’s your way right now. You’re the source of your motivation, finding your own satisfaction in solo gym sessions and quiet early morning runs. Whether you comment ‘Smashed it’ in your workout journal or track your progress on a fitness app, you know your fitness goals and what drives you comes from inside you. You’re achieving and exceeding your fitness goals in a space made up of you and your self-motivation.
Training at home or with a short trip to your local gym sees you fitting workouts into your daily life – doing a lunch break workout, starting or finishing the day with training.
You give yourself the chance to focus on progressing your skills – getting the form just right, adding another mile, taking off seconds, or lifting a new weight. And here’s a bonus: this self-motivated training can be the start of something bigger. When the time’s right for you, you’ve created the perfect platform from which to launch new challenges – a park run, a local 10K race or a gym-based competition.
Creating Energy in Numbers
You know that going public with your goals will provide you with that extra motivation you need to achieve them. Having training partners notice your improving form, getting Strava kudos, or setting yourself a target to raise money for charity helps you to keep going.
Booking a class or arranging to meet others at the gym provides a powerful external pull. Even if you have to travel a bit further for your workout, the rewards are there. Once you’re amongst the crowd, you enjoy the boost you get, with everyone supporting and driving each other through the challenges. You thrive on the energy of exercising alongside others and the buzz created pre-race by a crowd of competitors.
Your training routine still allows you space to complete other things in your life without stress and pressure. What's more, the enjoyment of training alongside others to reach your fitness goals may transfer over into growth in other areas of your life.
Entering the Unknown
Up until now staying local has allowed you to meet your fitness challenges. Now you want to add something more to your fitness goals. Taking on competitions that involve travel to previously unvisited destinations far from your home might be what you are looking for.
You’re in a place you’ve never explored, finding a start line you’ve never stood on before. You’ve given your challenge another layer, one that goes beyond the physical. The uncertainty of going somewhere you don’t know, the challenge of planning the logistics, getting yourself, and equipment, to the base of that mountain or into the heat of another continent.
Each mile further away from home adds layers to your challenge. These expanded goals will spill over into other areas of your life – longer training hours, having to train more at weekends, all the while taking time away from doing other things you might also see as important. This may mean sacrifices to make the challenge happen. It’s about choosing what matters most to you at that time.
It’s not just about testing physical and practical boundaries. You’re pushing all boundaries – it could be overcoming fears and anxieties, increasing self-confidence, building your knowledge - and taking your world wider.
Following New Paths
You're ready to add to what you already do well. You're easing through those running distances, you’re lifting heavier, and hitting perfect form each time. Now you’re asking yourself, ‘What extra can I do?’. You remember that excitement you get from exploring a new skill and how it boosts your motivation. The confidence you have gained in mastering one skill will launch you, and keep you going, in this new challenge. The bonus? Your new skills can even complement your performance in other areas of your fitness.
There is a trade-off. Taking on a new skill takes up more time and budget with new kit and new classes. You’ll need to adapt your training routine to manage the risk of injury and overtraining. But then, if the challenge of learning a new skill gives you that spark that you need, the adjustments are probably worth it.
The options are vast. You could add a new angle to your favourite activity and go, for example, from running to trail running, from pool swimming to open water swimming. Or bring two or more sports together, adding cycling to running to do a duathlon, and add swimming to do a triathlon. Or go from lifting weights in the gym to explore your body weight with calisthenics. The fitness world becomes your playground and a place of exploration.
Re-Setting Your Life to Challenge Ratio
Challenges can go from taking up moments to taking up months. You’ve been able to fit your fitness goals around your non-fitness life – that time getting the last rep, the pre-work HIIT workout, the long weekend run, you’ve even managed part of a year training for a triathlon. You are now at a stage in your where you want to move the commitment dial up and towards a fitness goal takeover of your time. You want to do something that rewrites your day, your week, your life. You might be looking for an adventure that will stretch beyond days, weeks and a few months. Or maybe you’re prepared to make your fitness passion your main driver, leaving your job and building a new identity around your fitness life.
You know that it will require a total re-allocation of your current resources. It’s more than adding training hours, it’s about what comes with a new identity – a new routine, new activities, new priorities. But you know also, that you’ll have new experiences, new interactions, new conversations, which could be more rewarding than staying where you are.
Found Your Next Challenge Destination?
The fitness world has so many different ways of offering you challenges that will reward, excite and motivate you. It’s challenges that keep us moving forward. You just have to work out the perfect match between where you are now and the different types of challenge destinations out there. And remember, it’s your unique fitness challenge. What matters is that it works for you.
